Author: Jonny

Magic Open House is an all day event with many events throughout the day to celebrate Magic the Gathering at A Muse N Games. We will be hosting our usual Saturday draft at noon, mini masters tournament throughout the day, and a 2 pm standard tournament. There will be participation prizes from Wizards of the Coast as well as draws and prizing for the tournaments. Bring a friend who has never played Magic before and you will receive a premium full-art basic land from Amonkhet and your friend will receive a free welcome deck (while supplies...

Commander Banlist – Prime Time and Garbage Time HOW TO AVOID TWO COMMON LOGICAL TRAPS WHEN TALKING ABOUT THE COMMANDER BANLIST Man, I’m like the worst clickbait artist ever. How am I supposed to lure you in to read a whole list if there’s only two things on the list? Anyway. As I mentioned in my last column, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and talking about the Commander banlist. And I keep running into the same two logical traps in almost every Reddit thread and pleasant moment of spoiler-season small talk. So while I’m testing our Dovin Baan Planeswalker Deck for the Planeswalker Deck Challenge, I figure I might as well do myself a favour and talk about how to avoid these fallacies. If nothing else, it’ll help all of you guys have better banlist discussions with your friends. Shall we? LOGICAL TRAP #1: “This card has so many answers! It shouldn’t be banned!” Prophet of Kruphix is the most recent addition to the commander banlist and the card where I see this argument come up the most often, so let’s begin with it. Yes, Prophet of Kruphix can be answered by many things, including kill spells, bounce spells, exile spells, counterspells, Speak & Spells, the musical Godspell, and Roadhog hooking her to point 2 on Ilios. The problem from an argumentative perspective is that this is...

International Tabletop Day at A Muse N Games will be a free event with special extras and cheats to raise money alongside Extra Life for the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba. You can donate money to guarantee a spot at a table (link below) but there will be free games all day and you can show up day of at no charge. Firefly (up to 4 players) at 12:00 pm Mice & Mystics (up to 4 players) at 12:00 pm Pathfinder Society Intro Table (up to 6 players) at 1:00 pm Masmora (up to 4 players) at 1:00 pm...

Well, this is fascinating. We’re going to take a break from the Planeswalker Deck Challenge series (1, 2, 3) this week to talk about a recent announcement Wizards of the Coast has made, and what it could mean for Commander as a whole. Specifically: Wizards is going to be making 1v1 Commander on MTG Online a Thing. And this has Implications. (First, a very quick glossary of some terms that might not be familiar: MTG Online/”MTGO”: The official client for playing Magic online. Rules Committee/”RC”: The grassroots group of community members that currently governs the Commander format, making rule and banlist decisions. Duel Commander: A 1v1 rules variant of Commander with its own Rules Committee and its own banlist, very different from regular Commander. Controversially, they changed starting life totals from 30 to 20 last year. Popular in France, and sometimes called “French EDH”. Leviathan Commander: A format that splintered off from Duel Commander last year after the life total change. Leviathan Commander is roughly identical to Duel Commander, except it keeps the starting life total at 30. Popular in Italy. 1v1 Commander: Not currently an official format—just a term used to describe one-on-one Commander games on MTGO. But that may change.) This week, the official Wizards Tumblr page for Magic Online made the following announcement, which I will quote here in full: 30 LIFE FOR 1V1 COMMANDER The Modern Masters 2017 Edition deployment...

Get out your boxes of bulk, it’s time to start brewing! In the last two instalments of the Mana Dork, I’ve been talking about the Planeswalker Deck Challenge, where I competed with the Ajani Planeswalker Deck at Aether Revolt Game Day in order to demonstrate that the Planeswalker Decks could do more to set new players up for success. I was incredibly lucky—I opened Ajani Unyielding in one of the booster packs for the Ajani Planeswalker Deck, along with a Greenwheel Liberator and some excellent uncommons. With this, I went 1-3, with 3 game wins across 9 games—well above par for what people currently expect for a Planeswalker Deck. But I maintain that I shouldn’t have to be that lucky to get that win total. So in today’s edition of the Mana Dork, we’re going to brew our own Planeswalker Deck, following all of the restrictions Wizards sets for their official ones. Shall we? BREAKING IT DOWN The Planeswalker Decks follow a well-established structure: They promote the current set They feature a custom version of a Planeswalker in that set, tuned for casual play They include two copies of a custom rare card that tutors for that Planeswalker They include three copies of a custom uncommon permanent that gets a benefit when you control that Planeswalker They include four copies of a custom common card flavoured for that Planeswalker...